Putting the Paris Declaration to work: Perspectives from an NGO

The Paris Declaration identifies five goals that can contribute to improving the effectiveness of international development assistance: ownership, alignment, harmonization, managing results, and mutual accountability. Although the declaration focuses to a large degree on the role of country-to-country assistance, one cannot overlook the fact that much of the development support and technical assistance is conducted through contracts, grants, and agreements. Thus, it becomes incumbent on the recipients of those mechanisms to remain focused on the principles both in their specific work as well as the larger context in which that work is being carried out.

As organizations that are involved in the health and population dimensions of international development, many NGOs are implicitly concerned with both results and building capacity. This presentation will examine some of the ways that international NGOs have appropriated the principles embedded in the Paris Declaration to foster higher-quality and sustainable development activities. Moreover, as the architecture for much of foreign assistance changes, some of the practicalities of implementing the Paris Declaration will face new challenges.